Combining mechanical performance and cost efficiency, Solvay is in high-level cooperation with SGL Carbon, a leading carbon fiber manufacturer, to develop a new generation of prepregs for aircraft components.
It is no longer news that composite materials are gradually replacing metals on airplanes. Reducing the weight of aircraft to suppress emissions is an urgent requirement. In the next few years, this will bring increasing pressure to the aerospace industry. But this is a slow and long process, and one of the reasons is the high cost of the high-performance composite materials required to manufacture the main structural aircraft components such as wings, tails and fuselages.
Large tow, low cost, high performance carbon fiber
With this in mind, Solvay ’s composites business unit signed a joint development agreement (JDA) with German carbon fiber manufacturer SGL Carbon to “market the first carbon fiber composite material based on large bundles of medium modulus”, Sol Frank Nickisch, Product Manager of U.S. Composites, said. SGL provides carbon fiber, and Solvay provides the main structural resin combination. "They showed new carbon fiber development results, and we found their performance very interesting," Frank continued, "so we started discussing cooperation."
The idea is to combine low-cost large-tow carbon fiber (produced with more filaments, in this case, 50K fiber is used instead of the standard 12K or 24K, so it has a higher output) and mechanical properties to Meet the needs of the aerospace industry. "Using larger carbon fiber tow to obtain high-demand mechanical properties is more difficult," Frank explained, "but this is our goal to optimize the interaction between carbon fiber and resin systems. This is the novelty of this product."
Addressing the demand for composite materials in aerospace
The goal of this high-level cooperation between the two companies is to develop new carbon fiber composite materials, which is Solvay's first cooperation. "We have obtained standard carbon fiber for prepreg from many suppliers, but this is the first time we have actively cooperated with the manufacturer to jointly study the structure of the carbon fiber surface." Frank said.
The reputation of SGL Carbon products is very significant in industrial fields such as wind energy and automobile manufacturing, "but they need a partner with appropriate capabilities to meet the needs of the aerospace market," Frank said. Solvay has been looking for deeper cooperation with partners and suppliers to develop products that can better meet the needs of its customers; therefore this cooperation is very suitable.
This is just the beginning of cooperation. At this time, aerospace manufacturers are initiating the screening process for these new composite materials in order to eventually use them in their products. The era of light aircraft will move further.